Ask HN: How do you make decisions with high opportunity costs?
Right now, I'm deciding between a master's in the biomedical field that I long dreamed of, and working as a SWE. I used to be certain I'd want to become a researcher, but in recent months I have either lost my idealism or became more pragmatic. I'm very close to receiving an offer as a SWE at a company that looks like a super nice company, remote options, interesting work, with a lot of opportunities to grow. The recruiter and developers I interviewed with seemed extremely nice and happy to talk about the company. There are two offices in two European cities I like and that employees apparently can choose pretty flexibly to work in, which is cool.
The master's program involves about a year of (unpaid) lab work, so I started to ask myself what's the point of putting myself through this if I'm not planning on doing a PhD afterwards (it's in Europe, tuition is cheap.) At the same time, I have always been a scientifically minded/interested person, and getting more actual research experience and training in scientific working might be rewarding in itself, and except for the last months I was always more passionate about science than working in software development and chasing a big paycheck. Plus, I think I would prefer seeing myself as a scientist who ended up in SWE due to the better working conditions, and somehow prove to myself that I can do it by doing the masters.
Clearly this is a very emotionally loaded decision for me, so I'd like to ask for guidance and hear about how anyone who's been in a similar situation came to make a decision.
Also, would doing a masters in an unrelated field make me a less attractive candidate when later applying for junior SWE roles and I already graduated 2 years ago?